


For the Caged Bird Sings of Freedom

by Craftnarok



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Fluff, Gen, much fluff, set pre-S1, this is just a soft silly little thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8081692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Craftnarok/pseuds/Craftnarok
Summary: Flint finds a sad-looking caged bird aboard a merchant ship and, being a secret soft-hearted sort, he decides to liberate it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So eagle-eyed [Ivana](http://captain-flint.tumblr.com/post/150540172673/is-that-a-bird-cage-in-flints-cabin-flint-and) spotted that there's a tiny little bird cage at the back of Flint's cabin in season one, and wondered where he might have got it from. The mental images of Flint with a tiny bird on his shoulder are just the best thing ever, so this fic happened. James 'bird nerd' Flint. Actual canon. 
> 
> This is appallingly fluffy and has very little substance, but it's my birthday (!!!) so indulge me. ;) <3

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a bird, Mr Gates!”

“Yes, I can see that. I meant, where the fuck did you find it and where the fuck are you going with it?”

Flint looked up from the manifest in his hands and turned his head towards the cabin door. They were aboard a merchant vessel laden heavy with sugar and tobacco, which had surrendered without even a perfunctory scuffle, and Flint was busy rifling through the papers in the captain’s cabin while his crew offloaded the goods. Through the open door he could hear Mr Gates talking to one of the Walrus crew – Joshua, he thought it might be – and he sounded put upon. Though, he considered, that was hardly new; put upon was generally Mr Gates’s default disposition when they were at sea. Still, the raid had gone as dully as could be hoped for and the manifest was equally as dry and devoid of surprises, so whatever was happening outside sounded at least like an interesting development. Snapping the book closed and setting it back on the desk, Flint strolled towards the door to investigate.

“I don’t care. Put the damn thing back,” Gates was saying, as Flint walked out on deck. He was indeed talking to Joshua, and several other crewmen who were hovering around. Joshua, it turned out, was holding up at eye-level a small gilt cage, inside which an even smaller yellow bird fluttered nervously from its perch to the floor to the bars and back again. It looked ruffled and frightened by the noise on deck, tweeting shrilly as it flapped around its barren metal enclosure. It appeared rather sickly too, Flint thought, taking in its thin body and somewhat disarrayed feathers.

“What’s going on?” he interrupted.

“Ah, nothing, Captain. Joshua here found a bird, is all. There are a couple of passengers on board; most likely it belongs to one of them. He’s going to put it back where he found it and get on with some actual work now, aren’t you Joshua?” Gates said, levelling Joshua with a stern look, his tone final, but Flint held his hand out and beckoned for him to hand over the cage.

“Captain-,” Gates began, but Flint cut him off as he hooked a finger through the handle and lifted the cage to his face.

“I think you all have some work to be doing, do you not?” Flint said, looking up sharply through the bars at the handful of crewmen who were now watching him, all of whom abruptly looked away and scurried off to help stow the cargo aboard the Walrus.

“ _Captain_ ,” Gates said again, “please tell me you’re not entertaining the idea I think you are.”

“The poor thing looks malnourished, Hal,” Flint said, and Gates let out a huff. “Its feathers are falling out, and look at its skinny little legs.”

“It’s a fucking bird, James! They all have skinny legs,” said Gates, before he sighed and ran a hand over his beard. “Jesus Christ, fine. You’re the captain; you do what you want. It’s your own food you’ll have to share with the bloody thing though. That is if Betsy doesn’t pull its head off within half an hour.”

Flint suppressed a smile as Gates wandered off to oversee the men, muttering something about “ _feel like a fucking schoolmaster to little shit kids sometimes”_ as he went, and he headed towards the gangplank, cage in hand.

 

***

 

Later that day, once they had left the merchant ship in their wake, sitting far lighter in the water than they had found her, Flint had the chance to give the bird his full attention. He had stowed it away in his cabin, cage hanging from a ceiling hook, with some water and hardtack, which he had crushed under his heel and slipped through the bars, weevils and all. When he returned, the crumbs of hardtack remained ignored - and really, who could blame it? - but the weevils were gone and the water had clearly been splashed about. The bird was looking somewhat calmer, though Flint could have sworn it still wore an expression of distinct annoyance.

“Hello,” he cooed, as he approached the cage, and the bird cocked its head a little, beady black eyes appraising him.

It was a canary, he thought. He had seen them before, cooped up and on sale at stalls in various ports. Slipping a finger through the bars, Flint clucked his tongue at the bird until it sidled closer along its perch. It seemed friendly enough, allowing him to scratch its feathers and nipping him gently with its beak. Flint considered for a moment, before he unlatched the door of the cage and stood back. Almost as soon as he had done it he decided that it was in actual fact a terrible idea, but before he could close the door again the little bird was perched in the opening and looking out into the room. Quick as a flash it spread its wings and fluttered out and onto the edge of his desk, hopping across his papers, its feet pattering as it skipped along.

“Shit,” James muttered, turning slowly and creeping as softly as he could towards his chair. He lowered himself into it carefully, keeping his eyes on the bird all the while. It would do it good to stretch its wings, he reasoned, belatedly trying to justify his rash decision, but he would really prefer it if it did so calmly, rather than working itself into a panic and shitting all over everything he owned from a great height and at prodigious velocity. 

The bird was watching him intently, but it seemed surprisingly relaxed about its unexpected change of environment and it simply hopped along the far edge of the desk, in turns looking around the room and back at him.

Picking up his compass and dividers and pulling a map quietly towards himself, Flint set about charting their course. There were storm clouds brewing off to the west, and so they would have to head due south for now, tacking east should the weather close in further, and approach Nassau from around the south of New Providence island. It was a circuitous route, but necessary, and it shouldn’t add more than an extra day or so to their journey.

Setting himself to the task, Flint kept only the barest watch on the little bird’s movements, but after a lap or two of the room it seemed content to settle on its newfound perch atop his inkwell, entirely unconcerned by the fact that it was quite in his way. Flint made do with writing his notes in pencil for a while, giving up only when the pressing evening gloom forced him to light candles and rub his straining eyes.

The bird, apparently noticing his concentration had finally broken, piped up in a chirruping song, hopping over to him and pecking at his fingers. At that moment, his stomach grumbled loudly and he wondered if the bird was making a similar demand for food. A few crumbs and weevils were hardly a feast. Perhaps there was some fruit or seeds in the galley. Or bread. What did canaries actually eat, for that matter? He ran his free hand over his beard, contemplating, as the bird hopped up onto the fingers of the hand that still lay on the table.

“Let’s see what we can find you, eh?” he said, rubbing his thumb gently over its bony little feet, before he stood slowly and carried it back to its cage. The bird seemed less than enthusiastic to return to its confinement, but with a gentle nudge it flitted up onto its perch, turning and peering down at him accusingly as he closed the cage door.   

“It’s for your own good,” Flint said, by way of an apology. “I won’t have you escaping the cabin and leading me on a merry dance to catch you before the cat does. Besides, there’s nothing but sea on the horizon for a good long while yet. I’m afraid you’ll just have to be patient.”

 

***

 

The following morning, Flint was awoken by the sound of shrill birdsong. For a moment he was disorientated, the twittering incongruous against the backdrop of the creaking hull and the rocking of his bed, but as he looked around his cabin with a frown he spotted his small, feathered guest sitting on the window sill, peering out at the dawn sky, and he remembered why it was there. He smiled and laid his head back on the pillow, listening as the bird chattered away to itself, drowning out the as yet still quiet noises on deck.

He had managed to find some sunflower seeds, a wizened apple (half of which he ate himself), and some slightly stale bread crusts the previous evening, which seemed to have gone down well enough. He knew he ought to have kept the cage door shut overnight, but as he was pulling his boots off before climbing into bed he caught sight of the bird watching him from the corner of the room, its beady eyes glittering in the candlelight, and he felt an inexplicable wash of guilt for having locked it away again. Who knew how long the poor thing had been confined before he had liberated it. Besides, the windows and doors of his cabin were firmly shut; it could hardly go any further than these four walls while he slept. And so he had sighed and opened the cage, before he settled down to sleep, only hoping that the bird would have the decency to remain quiet until dawn.

He had never been in a position to own a pet, and had honestly never quite understood the allure. Hunting dogs, he understood. Mousing cats, he understood. But birds? The appeal of those eluded him; especially if one only intended to keep them locked up in a tiny cage for the rest of their days, stuffed in a dark corner of some dusty drawing room. It seemed a horrible cruelty to keep a bird from flight, and he could not help but shake his head at the absurd irony of the dread Captain Flint concerning himself with the welfare of the most insignificant of creatures. Perhaps it was their innate innocence which made them seem to him undeserving of suffering. Or perhaps it was that he could too easily empathise with the misery of feeling trammelled when all of one’s instincts cried out for freedom. Either way, he could not deny that his heart felt lifted as he listened to the bird moving about and twittering at the morning sun.

Climbing out of bed, Flint pulled his clothes on and padded barefoot to the window. The little creature seemed almost pleased to see him, he thought, though he would hardly call himself knowledgeable when it came to reading the moods and expressions of birds. Still, it fluttered up to his shoulder and seemed content to perch there as it continued its singing. Though he would of course never have admitted it out loud, Flint was secretly rather thrilled that the bird had taken such a liking to him. Perhaps that was the true allure of pets, he considered. They didn’t know or care about your faults. It didn’t even matter if you were the leader of a band of ruthless and fearsome buccaneers. As long as you showed them a modicum of kindness, and offered the occasional treat, they would not judge you in the least.

The little bird ruffled its feathers and settled itself more comfortably, and Flint smiled again as he readied himself for the day.

 

***

 

“I swear this bird knows Bach,” Flint said, peering at the creature on his shoulder from the corner of his eye. “Listen.”

It was mid-afternoon and he was standing on deck near the starboard rail with Mr Gates, the bird still unmoved from its spot beside his ear. Gates, for his part, was just about managing to suppress the look of concerned disbelief that was fighting to spread across his face, though every once in a while he could not seem to help but scan the nearby crewmen to see who might be watching. It was becoming almost a nervous tic.

Flint whistled a few notes at the bird, a little off key and probably misremembering the exact composition – it was a piece he had only ever heard played on the harpsichord by Miranda, from sheet music he had ‘acquired’ by chance a year or so previously – but the bird seemed to recognise the tune and it happily picked up where he left off, singing several further bars. He looked over at Gates wearing an expression of smug vindication, which promptly fell off his face when Gates said, “I don’t know what sort of dogs you’ve been around, but that doesn’t sound much like any bark I’ve ever heard.”

“ _Bach_ is a composer,” Flint said, failing to keep the tone of incredulity out of his voice, but as Gates continued to look nonplussed and unimpressed he added a muttered, “Never mind.”

“I just don’t understand why the bloody thing’s stuck to you as though its feet were glued on,” Gates went on, frowning. “What did you do to it? Why doesn’t it just fly off?”

“I didn’t do anything to it. And where would it fly to? We’re still at least a day from any land; it’s a canary, not an albatross,” Flint said. “Besides, it’s tame. I think it likes the company. Don’t you?” He addressed the last to the bird itself.

Gates frowned at him for a moment longer, before suddenly looking mildly alarmed. “You’re not planning on keeping it, are you?” he said. “Please tell me you’re not. The crew are starting to talk. If they catch you having conversations with it they’ll think you’ve lost your wits. You haven’t, have you? Because a soft spot for the ship’s cat is one thing…even a parrot would make some sort of sense, but this? It’s just...such a lady’s accessory. It’s more of a hairpiece than an animal.”

Flint stared at him. “Jesus Christ, Hal,” he said. “How delicate is your ego? It’s just a damn bird. And no, I haven’t lost my fucking wits. I apologise if you feel my not having bitten its head off and tossed it overboard in front of the entire crew has damaged my reputation, but I’m not actually a blood-thirsty demon.”

“I didn’t mean it like that…” Gates trailed off and sighed, before trying a different tack. “Could you give it to Mrs Barlow, perhaps?”

“She doesn’t approve of caging birds. Most likely it’ll just fly off once we reach port and you’ll never have to see it again. Until then I don’t much give a shit what the crew think,” said Flint, chucking the bird under its beak. “I wonder if it could learn Handel?” he added, almost to himself.

“Handles? I highly doubt it’s strong enough to open doors, James,” Gates said.

“ _What?_ No, _George Handel_ \- Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Flint muttered, sliding down against the railings and pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

***

 

Though he continued to be unconcerned by the opinions of the crew, Flint could not help but be more aware of the eyes on him over the next couple of days. There were certainly more lingering looks of confusion than he was used to; at least, confusion that wasn’t derived from bewilderment or suspicion in the face of unexplained orders given in service of undisclosed ends. The happiness which he gained from waking to birdsong each morning, however, and the feeling of companionship from having the bird choose his company for hours at a time, were more than enough to outweigh any negative consequences, in his eyes.

As they approached Nassau on the morning of the third day, Flint had made a decision. He shut the bird in its cage once more, draping a shirt over it and ignoring its chirping protests, and he carried it with him in the launch that ferried him across to the beach, ignoring too the sideways glances of the men rowing. Around the port there were any number of ships’ cats wandering the streets, and vendors who would recognise a tame bird from a mile away and seek to catch and sell it. He wasn’t going to let it go free just anywhere.

And so he balanced the cage awkwardly on the saddle in front of him as he rode towards the interior of the island. The bird was, helpfully, obligingly calm for most of the trip, though once or twice bursts of indignant twittering emanated from beneath the shirt-covering when the cage slipped sideways and he hurriedly righted it. He managed to make it all the way the house without actually dropping the cage, however, and as he dismounted and peered under the shirt to check on his companion, the front door opened and Miranda walked out onto the porch looking intrigued.

“What have you got there?” she said, descending the steps and crossing the yard towards him. “I could hear you rattling around through the kitchen window.”

“It’s not a gift,” he said hurriedly, “before you get your hopes up. Not exactly, anyway.”

He pulled the shirt off the cage - with slightly more of a flourish than was strictly necessary - and lifted the little bird up to eye-level.

“A canary!” Miranda said. “Where on earth did you get it?”

“I found it on a merchant ship looking sad and pathetic. What was I to do?” he said with a grin, handing over the cage. “I thought you might like to take care of it for a while and then let it go. Though it’s very tame; it might prefer to stay.”

“James, you are soft,” Miranda murmured as she turned to walk back into the house, holding the cage aloft and smiling at the bird.

“No, I’m hard and terrifying, hadn’t you heard? It likes apple, by the way,” he called after her, as he hitched up the horse and followed her in.

 

***

 

The bird stayed with Miranda for several weeks after that. She set the cage on a high shelf, leaving the door open, but the bird seemed happy to be entirely free of it. It was quite content to follow her about the house, occasionally venturing out through the open window, but always returning soon enough. It was friendly with her as well, but James noted with some quiet smugness that it still preferred to sit on _his_ shoulder when he was there. Miranda shot him more than one knowing look on days when he returned home and she caught him peering around the kitchen looking for it before he had even kicked his boots off and shut the door. She seemed genuinely worried when she had to break the news to him some two months later that the little bird appeared to have finally flown off for good. Though he was saddened, Miranda’s assertion that she was certain she had heard it singing in the trees near the church the day before reassured him that a life of more dangerous freedom seemed a far better prospect to him than one cooped up in ‘safety’ away from the sun and the trees. Miranda called him a romantic, when he shared those thoughts out loud, and though he narrowed his eyes in mock indignation he did not contradict her.  

He took the cage with him when he next left the house, thinking he might sell it in town, but when he reached Nassau again he found himself inexplicably reluctant to part with the thing. Miranda’s declarations that he was soft and romantic echoed in his mind, but it only cemented his decision before he had even realised he’d made it. He returned the little gilt cage to his cabin, hanging it back on its hook, and though he wouldn’t quite acknowledge his purpose in doing so, he was privately happy to find comfort in the presence of a small reminder that he was still capable of good and kind things, even far out to sea where he was only Captain Flint.

 

***

 

For some years after, just occasionally, when Miranda sat down at her harpsichord – particularly when she played a familiar piece of Bach - a melodious twittering would join her from the trees outside, and a little yellow bird would land on her windowsill and tap at the glass to be let in. More occasionally still, the bird found _two_ old friends sitting in the house, an offer of a slice or two of apple, and a waiting shoulder most glad of its company.


End file.
